five essentials for a heavenly bedroom

We swapped rooms with the kiddos last year, and it’s taken me ages to get round to actually doing anything with out new space; it’s teeny tiny – there’s only enough room for a bed and a wardrobe – which means it’s really hard to make it look ‘done’ without being overcluttered. After all the umm-ing and ahh-ing, I’ve whittled the list of bedroom decor ‘essentials’ down to a manageable five – which is practically nothing to a former hoarder like me!

1. Good bedding
Considering we spend a whopping third of our lives asleep (although it might not feel like it if you’ve got children!), bedding is one of the most important things you’ll buy for a bedroom. A lot of people swear by high thread-counts and luxury brands, but honestly, my favourite set is from Wilkinsons – it’s the softest one we’ve had so far. Zara Home and H&M are great for good quality basics (although H&M seem to carry some pretty weird sizes), but if you’re looking to spend a bit more, try Soak and Sleep or The Linen Works.

Image courtesy of Bruno

2. A decent mattress
I’ve slept on budget mattresses before, and I can tell you that it’s much better to spend the extra money than it is to lose feeling in one side of your body every night. A good mattress is so important, and can make huge differences to everything from standard aches and pains to posture and body temperature. Based in Germany, Bruno is a company that manufactures mattresses with a difference – combining a removable, quilted cover, a hypoallergenic top layer and a unique 7-zone support base, they’ve managed to design a single mattress that suits everybody. (They’re also hugely environmentally friendly – the latex is organically farmed and the fabric manufacturer is a family-run firm, AND they’ve designed their packaging to save energy. Top marks!)

3. A rug (or two, if it’s a big space!)
The bedroom in the top picture is my idea of perfection; it’s airy and uncluttered, but still manages to look ‘finished’. What makes it really great, though, is the rug – our room is nowhere near big enough to have a rug (maybe a bathmat at the end of the bed?), but if it were, I’d definitely choose the one in the picture (it’s the Belle by Modern Rugs). Rugs are great, not only for adding texture, but they can also work brilliantly to hide an ugly carpet or chipped laminate.4. A row of hooks
I love hooks on the wall – I’ve got loads of nice straw bags and baskets, prints, scarves and so on that I like to rotate on display, but all the ready-made hooks we found were really small, and just made everything look all squashed together. In the end, Ali made a huge set from an old floorboard (you could easily just get a piece of furniture board from B&Q which would do the same job) and seven Svartsjon hooks from IKEA screwed into it – I love it, because it almost covers one entire wall, and there’s enough room for everything. If you can’t be bothered with faffing around, IKEA have also just brought out the Falsterbo wall rail with hooks – one isn’t that large, but they can be screwed into the wall with the ends flush, so several would look like one long item.

Image Courtesy of IKEA

5. Plants, plants and more plants
A room without plants is not a finished room, fact. They add a bit of nature and colour to the room, they clean the air and they look great. What more do you need?!